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Take Action to Protect Wetlands

Wetlands are a vital resource for all New Yorkers - they maintain clean water, prevent flooding, and provide habitat for ducks and other wildlife.

Rollbacks in federal protection and weak state laws threaten these important natural resources. New York State laws very rarely protect wetlands that are less than 12.4 acres in size and many of New York's wetlands are entirely unprotected as they were never properly mapped.

Take Action:

Every Wednesday, visit the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Environmental Notice Bulletin web site at:

Public notices are posted weekly on this site under “SEQR and other notices” by DEC Region. Many of these public notices concern proposed state wetland map amendments. NYS DEC staff need to be encouraged with your public comments to update state wetland maps to reflect those wetlands that were not identified when the first state maps were created with old 1980’s technology. Large differences in wetland areas can be noticed when comparing national wetland inventory maps on the US Fish & Wildlife Service web site to current state wetlands maps.